U.S. ADMITS NAPALM USE

“American pilots dropped the con­tro­ver­sial incen­di­ary agent napalm on Iraqi troops dur­ing the advance on Baghdad,” accord­ing to the Independent. “The attacks caused mas­sive fire­balls that oblit­er­ated sev­eral Iraqi posi­tions.“

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their com­man­ders have con­firmed that they used an upgraded ver­sion of the weapon against dug-​​in posi­tions…
A 1980 UN con­ven­tion banned the use against civil­ian tar­gets of napalm, a ter­ri­fy­ing mix­ture of jet fuel and poly­styrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few coun­tries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed noto­ri­ously against both civil­ian and mil­i­tary tar­gets in the Vietnam war.
The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.

August 11th, 2003 | War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.